ABSTRACT

Poor food habit leads to nutritional inadequacy. This cross-sectional study was designed to determine the food habit and nutritional status of bankers in Umuahia metropolis. A total of 150 respondents were selected using simple random sampling techniques. A well structured questionnaire was distributed to the respondents but 138 were retrieved and analyzed with 67 being males and 71 being females. The questionnaire was made up of 5 sections which include personal characteristics, socio-economic characteristics, food habits, food frequency questionnaire and 24-hour dietary recall and anthropometric measurement. The food habits were determined using food frequency questionnaire and dietary diversity was determined using 24-hour dietary recall. Descriptive analysis was used to obtain the statistical analysis.47.8% of the male respondents were between the ages of 31-40 years, whereas less than seventy percent (69.0%) of the female respondents were between the ages of 20-30 years. Less than sixty percent (56.7%) of the male respondents were married and 57.7% of the female respondents were single.All the respondents in this study were Christians with 47.8% and 56.3% of the male and female respondents respectively having a family size ofbetween 4-6 persons. Theresults showed that less than seventy percent (65.2%) of the respondents skipped meals while some (34.8%) of the respondents do not skip meals. Majority (71.0%) of the respondents consumed snacks whereas some (29%) of the respondents do not.The results on dietary diversity score showed that the male had a mean score of 7.88±2.07 while the females had a mean score of 5.38±1.74.This implies that the males had a higher diversity in their diets while females had medium diversity. The results revealed thathealth (41.3%), preference (65.9%) and availability (19.6%) were the most common factors affecting the food habit of bankers. Results on nutritional status revealed that in general some (63.8%) of the respondents were of a normal weight while the prevalence of overweight and obesity among the bankers were (30.4%) and (5.8%) respectively. Using the waist-hip ratio classification for male and female, the study revealed that less than seventy percent (60.6%) of the female bankers had a high risk of metabolic diseases while 64.2% of the male bankers had a low risk of metabolic diseases.The result of this study shows that there is poor eating habit among bankers. This is due to meal skipping and high snack consumption. Banks should initiate the idea of cafeterias or employ a health conscious catering establishment that will aid in the provision of healthful meals to employees.